Excel and AI to get ‘tighter and tighter.’ Here’s what that means

Brian Jones, the lead for Excel at Microsoft, took to X/Twitter this week to address the future of Excel, and specifically the integration of Microsoft’s Copilot AI and Excel going forward. His vision: AI is poised to do a lot more heavy lifting in helping users model out data analysis and assist with critical decisions.

Jones’ statements started with a reader prompt. Someone named “Everett” asked Jones about Excel’s long-term relationship with AI, and whether Excel is “evolving from a spreadsheet tool into a business reasoning platform, where users can simply describe a problem in plain language, and Excel builds the model, analysis, and insights automatically.”

“Everett, yes, that’s exactly what our vision is,” Jones replied.

“The problem is that sometimes folks get stuck,” Jones said in a video posted to the social media platform. “They don’t totally know how to use the platform and use the tools, or sometimes the analysis is actually quite complex, and so it can take a long time. So our view is Copilot will make it easier for you to use Excel, so more people will be able to get to these conclusions.”

Jones continued: “Sometimes you have to go through multiple hypotheses. It will save you a lot of time. So even if you know how to use Excel, Copilot just saves you time and it gets you to the right insight faster.”

Excel — with a big AI assist

There are two things going on here. Most existing Excel users know the basics, like adding data to cells, creating graphs, and possibly using more advanced features like pivot tables and custom formulas. However, Excel also hides a wealth of more complex features, which Jones seems to think could be unlocked by simply asking Excel’s Copilot tool in plain language to perform. Beyond that, users might not even know quite what to ask of Excel, and it’s here that Copilot can provide additional assistance.

Jones went on to say that Excel is more than just a spreadsheet.

“Excel has always been that ultimate decision-making tool, and that’s the way people are looking to AI,” he said. “The evolution we see is AI and Excel gets tighter and tighter in terms of how it works together, and you’re just using Excel as the ultimate way of making those decisions.”

That may be a little surprising to folks who have used Excel as little more than a repository for the sales figures of, say, a small business. But I can remember decades ago when Oracle showed off a database demo designed to identify not just what sales regions were underperforming, but what could be done about it.

Business applications have traditionally been used to help identify problems — first by humans, and later by the applications themselves. But now we’re looking at AI-assisted applications that can identify solutions to those problems. What Jones seems to be implying is that Microsoft will cater to two schools of users: customers who want to input the data and reason through a solution themselves, and then customers who want Excel and Copilot to handle it all itself.

You may have noticed that Jones draws an implicit line in the sand: Excel provides insights, but he never says it will take action, a la agentic AI. That would be a logical next step, though it doesn’t seem like a step Microsoft is willing to make quite yet.